THINGS WE LEFT UNSAID

THINGS WE LEFT UNSAID

A deadly pallor rises,
Raining down a harsh rebuke.

Curses of our fathers,
Whose mouths were taped and muted.

And frozen still within the crypt,
The ice floes never thawing,

The fossils useless still remain
Of things we left unsaid.

Who knew that all these words withheld
Could etch like acid on the heart,
And burn with acrid, lonely stench
Across these plains traversed together?

And no one knows when first we fell
Into this gaping hole of quiet,

Eery as the morn that dawns
Behind a final holocaust.

I only know I loved you
In the muted faltering steps

Footfalls that were noiseless
As bare feet on a throw rug.

Lost within a mansion of antiseptic grandeur,
Our rooms roped off and barren
Against the tour guide's numbing drone,

Faceless voices narrate, elucidate our failings.
The ghosts of love that's vanished
Slip up and down the stairs.

A specimen kept under glass,
A petri dish of ruin.
A deadly gas releases, like radon in the shadows.

A pair of gas masks go unused,
Tangled in the bed clothes.

Land mines under feather pillows,
Things we left unsaid.

-Bruce Potts
Revised Copyright 2014
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED